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Thursday, December 13, 2018

President Donald Trump threatens to shut down the federal
government just before Christmas if he doesn’t get $5 billion to build his
border wall.

“I am proud to shut down the government for border
security,” he said Tuesday during a testy, 17-minute, on-camera exchange with Democratic
leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

Trump orchestrated live reality TV from the Oval
Office when he invited Schumer and Pelosi to negotiate, then argued in public and
violated the cardinal political rule of a government shutdown: He owned
it.

“I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to
blame you for it,” Trump said.

After pledging to make Mexico pay for the border wall,
Trump asked Congress for $25 billion to build it. Congress appropriated $1.6
billion for fencing. Senate Democrats have offered to extend the current spending,
but House Democrats are balking at more than $1.3 billion.

Trump’s strategy, if he has one, is baffling congressional
Republicans who would share blame if a shutdown occurs.

“I’m on the record saying numerous times I think a
shutdown is a fool’s errand. Every shutdown we’ve been in, nobody wins. So I’m
very discouraged by that,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West
Virginia, The Washington Post reported.

Schumer and Pelosi stood their ground at the meeting, a
sign of the tempestuous times ahead in divided government.

“The American people recognize that we must keep the
government open, that a shutdown is not worth anything, and that we should not
have a Trump shutdown,” Pelosi told the president.

All this makes for riveting TV but terrible
government. Funding gaps lead to shutdowns when our leaders fail to do their
constitutional duty.

“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in
Consequence of Appropriations made by Law,” Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7 of
the Constitution says.

Shutdowns literally show us a government that doesn’t
work.

During the October 2013 shutdown, private citizen
Trump tweeted: “Government is shut down yet Obama is now harassing the
privately owned @Redskins to change its name. He needs to focus on his job!”

Shutdowns actually cost taxpayers. Agencies take their
systems down and bring them back up. They send workers home on furlough but
eventually pay them for the days they were idle. Millions of dollars in fees go
uncollected.

After the 16-day shutdown in 2013, furloughed workers
received an estimated $2.5 billion in pay and benefits, the Office of
Management and Budget reported. The National Park Service estimated the
shutdown cost $500 million in lost tourist revenue to the parks and surrounding
communities, OMB said.

We shouldn’t be at the precipice again. Congress has
passed and Trump has signed five of the 12 spending bills for the fiscal year
that began Oct. 1, funding about 75 percent of the government through next
September.

So, if there is a shutdown, only 25 percent of the
government would be hit. Defense would be unaffected and Social Security,
Medicare and Medicaid recipients would get their benefits. But Congress still must
pass the remaining seven bills by midnight Dec. 21 or risk angering millions of
Americans deprived of services.

The way out is through old-fashioned, unsexy,
effective compromise. Trump should agree to a path to citizenship or legal
status for more than 1 million “dreamers,” young people who were brought to
this country illegally as children.

Democrats, despite their hatred of the wall, need to
show they care about border security with increased technology and personnel
and even building segments of the wall -- in places that are not
environmentally sensitive.

Polls, unsurprisingly, show people polarized on the
issue. Fifty-seven percent of Americans overall want the president to
compromise and avoid a government shutdown, but two-thirds of Republicans want
him to stand tough, an NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist Poll reported this week.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told
reporters he’s “hoping for a Christmas miracle” to end the standoff and avoid a
shutdown.

We don’t need a miracle. We just need Congress and the
president to do their jobs.

Thursday, December 6, 2018

The National Day of Mourning, the state funeral and
the private burial are over, but let’s not tuck away the shared experience of
celebrating former President George Herbert Walker Bush’s life.

If we take nothing from the week’s events, the pause
in our toxic partisanship will be just that: a pause.

Indeed, TV commentators in recent days kept assuring us
our national dyspepsia will be back before we know it. Some seemed to almost relish
its return, perhaps because meanness and name-calling animate the airwaves and
Internet.

I don’t doubt they’re right. There’s little appetite
for civility, the conventional wisdom tells us. But if that’s so, why were millions
of Americans mesmerized by the farewell to a president whose calling card was gentlemanliness?

Even those of us who were not fans of some of Bush’s
politics and policies – the Willie Horton campaign ad and his choice of
Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court come to mind -- were drawn to his life’s lessons.

It would be a shame to waste this moment of
reflection.

Bush, who was 94 when he died, orchestrated his
funeral at National Cathedral from words to hymns. He chose as speakers those
who would talk about his roles as father, friend, patriot, president and
parishioner.

His biographer Jon Meacham explained in his eulogy
that after Bush’s near-death experience as a Navy fighter pilot in World War
II, “To him, his life was no longer his own. There were always more missions to
undertake, more lives to touch and more love to give.”

In death, Bush fulfilled one final mission: He
reminded us what matters in life.

“His life code, as he said, was `Tell the truth. Don’t
blame people. Be strong. Do your best. Try hard. Forgive. Stay the course,’”
Meacham said. “And that was and is the most American of creeds.”

When Meacham read his eulogy to Bush, the former
president came back with typical humor and humbleness: “That’s a lot about me,
Jon,” he said, according to Bush spokesman Jim McGrath.

Former Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming, a close personal
friend, called Bush a man “of such great humility,” adding dryly, “Those who
travel the high road of humility in Washington, D.C., are not bothered by heavy
traffic.”

Bush’s simple credo was: “What would we do without
family and friends?” Simpson said.

Former President George W.
Bush said his dad was genuinely optimistic, “And that optimism guided his
children and made each of us believe that anything was possible.”

His father “looked for the
good in each person and usually found it,” the 43rd president said.

The implicit comparison with President Donald Trump,
who sat on the front row with every other living president, was stark. Trump did
not speak, although he’d already said plenty about Bush and the former
presidents, several of whom were frosty towards him.

When Bush died Nov. 30, Trump put out a glowing
statement and was by all accounts very gracious to the Bush family, sending his
plane to transport the casket and family to Washington, inviting the Bushes to
stay at Blair House and paying a sympathy call there. He was acting the way a president should act.

But he and Bush were far from close. Trump had gutted the
presidential campaign of Bush’s son Jeb with the epithet “low energy.” The
elder Bush was quoted as calling Trump a “blowhard.”

As recently as July, Trump mocked Bush’s “thousand
points of light” concept of volunteerism, saying at a campaign rally in
Montana, “Thousand points of light – I never quite got that one. What the hell
is that? Has anyone ever figured that one out?”

When the elder Bush was president, Trump said he liked
and supported him but blasted Bush’s goal of a “kinder, gentler” country.

“I think if this country gets any kinder or gentler,
it’s literally going to cease to exist,” Trump said in a Playboy interview in
1990.

That was absurd then and even more so now.

But if we want a kinder, gentler America, we have to
start acting like it. And that would
truly make America great again.

Thursday, November 29, 2018

The dusky gopher frog hopped into these pages in early
October after its appearance, figuratively, before the Supreme Court.

The first oral argument of the term involved the
endangered frog’s critical habitat, specifically the federal government’s
responsibility under the Endangered Species Act to protect critical habitat
versus landowners’ rights.

On Tuesday, the court issued a unanimous opinion in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service -- but did not settle the matter.

The justices sent the dispute, with instructions on
two questions, back to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New
Orleans, which had sided with the wildlife service in 2016.

So the frog is still in hot water.

To recap, the dusky gopher frog (Rana sevosa) historically
lived in Louisiana but hasn’t been seen there since about 1965. The frog is
named for the gopher tortoise holes where the mature frog lives.

Now found in only three places in Mississippi, the
frog was declared endangered in 2001, and the wildlife service designated 1,544
acres in St. Tammany Parish as critical habitat in 2012.

The landowners want to develop the property, and the
government and environmentalists want to preserve the land in case it’s needed
to save the species.

The case became a cause
celebre for property rights advocates who accuse the government of a land
grab. The landowners claimed a Supreme Court win.

“In a word: elated. It’s a great victory for our
side,” Edward Poitevent whose family has owned the land for generations, told
the Associated Press. Weyerhaeuser Co. also owns a part and grows commercial
timber there.

Environmentalists were disappointed, but “the ruling
doesn’t weaken the mandate to protect habitat for endangered wildlife,” said
Collette Adkins of the Center for Biological Diversity.

The case is important because it may signal courts are
willing to slow Trump Administration efforts to weaken the Endangered Species
Act. Separate efforts by House Republicans to rewrite the species law seem
doomed now that Democrats have regained control of the House, but that doesn’t
stop the administration’s action.

In oral arguments, three of the four conservative
justices seemed sympathetic to the landowners, and Justice Clarence Thomas
asked no questions. The four liberal justices seemed sympathetic to saving the
frog’s habitat.

Perhaps they agreed to disagree. The vote was 8 to 0
to send back the case. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was not yet on the court
when the justices heard the arguments, did not participate in the case.

In the opinion, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., seemed
to appreciate the quirky critter.

“Warts dot its back, and dark spots cover its entire
body. It is noted for covering its eyes with its front legs when it feels
threatened, peeking out periodically until danger passes. Less endearingly, it
also secretes a bitter, milky substance to deter would-be diners,” Roberts
wrote.

The chief also provided a grammar lesson: “Our
analysis starts with the phrase ‘critical habitat.’ According to the ordinary
understanding of how adjectives work, ‘critical habitat’ must also be ‘habitat.’
Adjectives modify nouns – they pick out a subset of a category that possesses a
certain quality.”

Yes, but. The law also says unoccupied land can be habitat, as Roberts noted in this
parenthetical sentence: “(Habitat can, of course, include areas where the
species does not currently live,
given that the statute defines critical habitat to include unoccupied areas.)”

The Supreme Court batted back to the lower court the
warty issues of what constitutes habitat and the economic ramifications of
designating the property as critical habitat.

An economic impact report found the designation
potentially could cost the landowners $33.9 million in lost development, but the
government concluded the cost was not disproportionate considering the
conservation benefits.

“The dusky gopher frog’s habitat protections remain in
place for now, and we’re hopeful the 5th Circuit will recognize the
importance of protecting and restoring habitats for endangered wildlife to
live,” said Adkins at the Center for Biological Diversity said.

At this point, the frog is in the 5th Circuit, but the
prolonged legal battle means it could yet hop back to the Supreme Court.

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

The year after he graduated, Michael Bloomberg donated
the princely sum of $5 to Johns Hopkins University. It was all he could afford.

Donating became a habit. Over the years, the 1964
graduate contributed $1.5 billion to the school for research, teaching and
financial aid.

That was the warmup for his latest eye-popping gift.

Bloomberg, billionaire business tycoon and
philanthropist, former mayor of New York and possible 2020 presidential
candidate, just gave his alma mater an additional $1.8 billion – with a B – solely
for student financial aid. It’s believed to be the largest donation to an
educational institution in American history.

Why?

“No qualified high school student should ever be
barred entrance to a college based on his or her family’s bank account. Yet it
happens all the time,” Bloomberg wrote in an op-ed Nov. 18 in The New York
Times.

“Denying students entry to college based on their
ability to pay undermines equal opportunity. It perpetuates poverty. And it
strikes at the heart of the American dream: the idea that every person, from
every community, has the chance to rise based on merit,” he wrote.

Most elite schools consider a student’s ability to pay
during the admissions process and turn away qualified students from low- and
middle-income families.

Bloomberg’s gift will ensure a “need-blind” admissions
policy at Hopkins, where tuition and fees for undergraduates tops $53,000 a
year. Students will receive scholarships instead of taking out student loans. The
idea is to create a student body that is socioeconomically diverse.

Bloomberg, founder of the financial data services firm
Bloomberg L.P., credits his success to his undergraduate education. His father
was a bookkeeper who never made more than $6,000 a year, but the son was able
to go to Hopkins with the help of a National Defense Student loan and a job on
campus.

“My Hopkins diploma opened doors that otherwise would
have been closed and allowed me to live the American dream,” he wrote. He earned
an MBA from Harvard in 1966.

Now a registered Democrat, Bloomberg, 76, served three
terms as mayor of New York as a Republican and independent. After considering a
presidential bid in 2016, he gave millions to help Democratic House candidates
in the midterms and is weighing a presidential bid in 2020.

As massive as Bloomberg’s gift is, though, it will
help lucky students at only one university. To change the shape of American higher
education generally will take changes on the state and federal level, so don’t
hold your breath.

But the rest of us can step up on Giving Tuesday. The
Tuesday after Thanksgiving has become an antidote to the spending excesses of
Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.

Now in its seventh year, it’s the day people around
the world contribute to worthy causes. Last year, more than $274 million was
raised from more than 2.5 million contributions, an increase of $97 million or
55 percent overall, from 2016.

Giving Tuesday isn’t political and doesn’t accept or
distribute contributions. People donate on their favorite charity’s website or through
a social media platform and publicize their choice with the hashtag
#givingtuesday.

It was founded by the 92nd Street Y, a
cultural and community center in New York, in partnership with the United
National Foundation. Founder Henry Timms, president and CEO of the Y, is co-author
of the best-selling book, “New Power,” and the son of one of my closest
friends.

Bloomberg has done his part to help his college, and
he hopes others will help theirs – “whether the check is for $5, $50, $50,000
or more,” he wrote.

,

Giving Tuesday invites us to reflect on what’s important
to us. Maybe your cause is health,
poverty, social justice, the arts, or the victims who’ve lost everything in the
wildfires in California. Maybe you’d rather give your support to local groups.

Give carefully. When you send money, be aware of
scammers. You can research organizations at CharityNavigator.org, GuideStar.org
and CharityWatch.org to make sure your money is put to good use.

We can’t all give like Bloomberg, but we all can do something
to make the country better – and make ourselves feel better. Happy Giving
Tuesday.

Thursday, November 15, 2018

If you thought the midterm elections were over except
for those messy recounts in Florida, think again. A special election for Senate
in Mississippi goes to a runoff Nov. 27.

Until this week, few people outside Mississippi paid
much attention, because history points to the Republican’s sailing to victory.
No Democrat has occupied either Senate seat in Mississippi in 30 years.

But Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s loose lips may
sink her ship.

A video posted on social media Sunday showed her
making a racially insensitive remark Nov. 2. Standing with a local rancher at a
gathering in Tupelo, Hyde-Smith joked: “If he invited me to a public hanging,
I’d be in the front row.”

The comment and her ham-handed handling of the uproar
that followed have breathed life into the campaign of her opponent Democrat
Mike Espy, who has rebounded from a political corruption scandal in the 1990s.

How Mississippi votes won’t alter Republican control
of the Senate, but the state will make history, regardless of its choice.

Hyde-Smith, a former state agriculture commissioner and
state senator, was appointed by the governor in April to fill the seat of Sen. Thad
Cochran who retired because of poor health. She could become the first woman
elected to the Senate from Mississippi.

Or Espy, who was the state’s first black congressman
since Reconstruction, servingsix years
in the House before becoming President Bill Clinton’s agriculture secretary, could
become the first black senator from the state since the Reconstruction era.

Hyde-Smith hasn’t apologized for her remark. To the
contrary, she issued a statement saying she had “used an exaggerated expression
of regard, and an attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous.”

Espy’s spokesman called Hyde-Smith’s comments
“reprehensible.”

The controversy likely will motivate black voters, who
make up nearly 40 percent of the vote.

“For many in Mississippi and beyond, the mention of
public hangings stirs memories of Mississippi’s history of racist violence,”
Mississippi Today reported.

The state carried out public hangings until 1940 as an
official method of capital punishment, and also has a history of allowing white
mobs to commit lynchings, the news outlet reported.

Mississippi had 654 reported lynchings between 1877
and 1950, more than any other state, according to a study by the Equal Justice
Initiative, based in Montgomery, Ala.

The primary ballot Nov. 6 listed four candidates without
party affiliations. President Donald Trump campaigned for Hyde-Smith, but she
and Espy each won 41 percent of the vote. A runoff is required if no candidate
reaches 50 percent.

Trump reportedly is now weighing whether to return to
Mississippi on her behalf.

Espy’s rise shows there can be second acts in
politics. When he stepped down as agriculture secretary in 1994, The New York
Times opined that “Mr. Espy’s behavior gave, at the very least, the appearance
of conflict of interest. It was also colossally stupid.”

He had allegedly accepted gifts, including Super Bowl
tickets and free trips, from lobbyists and companies he regulated.

When Espy was indicted by an independent counsel three
years later, The Times wrote: “It is sad to see a young politician’s promising
career go down the drain in a personal corruption scandal.”

Espy stood trial for seven months, charged with illegally
soliciting and accepting gifts worth $35,000. Prosecutors showed he received
the gifts but could not prove he did any official acts in return. He was acquitted
of all 30 counts of corruption in 1998.

“I knew from Day One that I would stand before you
completely exonerated,” Espy told reporters at the time.

He has practiced law in Jackson but this is his first
campaign since the trial.

“I had to rebuild a life,” he told the Jackson Free
Press.

“Mississippians are a forgiving lot,” Mac Gordon, a
former Mississippi newsman wrote in the Jackson Clarion Ledger in August, long
before Hyde-Smith’s “hanging” comments. Gordon was referring to his belief Espy
should and would win.

Forgiveness is a word we rarely associate with politics.

But in a year of election surprises, the winner of Mississippi’s
Senate runoff may be the candidate voters are most willing to forgive.

Abigail Spanberger, self-described as a former CIA operative and a
Girl Scout leader, narrowly defeated Tea Party favorite Rep. Dave Brat in the
Richmond suburbs.

And Jennifer Wexton, a state senator since 2014, rolled over
longtime Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock in the Northern Virginia suburbs.

Precisely how many women will be in Congress depends on
still-undecided races. One thing is clear, though: Trump can’t ignore women
anymore.

Women voters helped drive the blue wave, such as it was, by generally
choosing Democrats for Congress. Fifty-five percent of women voted for a
Democratic congressional candidate, and only 41 percent for a Republican, the
AP’s exit poll reported. Men’s votes were more evenly split.

In 2016, Trump won 53 percent of white women’s votes. In the
midterms, 50 percent of white women voted for a Democrat for Congress and 46
percent for a Republican, according to exit polls.

Republicans acknowledge the party is turning off white,
college-educated, suburban women. Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor,
R-Virginia, who lost to Brat four years ago, blames “cultural signals” sent by the
party.

It’s incumbent on GOP legislators to step up with an agenda both men
and women can support, including help for child care and health care, Cantor
told Bloomberg Radio Wednesday.

But with the House in Democratic hands for the first time since
2010, Trump will need to work with Democrats or watch his agenda grind to a
halt. The GOP strengthened its control of the Senate Tuesday by two or three
senators, but the House has the power of the purse.

The incoming freshman class of House Democrats is refreshingly
diverse – with the first two Muslim women, first two Native American women, and
the first black woman member from Massachusetts. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of
New York is the youngest member of Congress at 29.

It’s tempting to feel exuberant about the new attitudes and policies
the freshmen women will bring, but the reality is sobering. Stalemate is more
likely than progress in divided government.

Before anything else, the new members must decide whether to
support House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, an effective party builder and a
lightning rod for critics, for Speaker.

Spanberger is among the few newly elected representatives who
promises not to support Pelosi “under any circumstances.” Luria and Wexton have
said they’ll wait and see.

Trump, of all people, says Pelosi deserves to be Speaker and he’ll
even help her get elected to the post. He claims he’s sincere; others think
he’s setting her up.

Pelosi expects to regain the Speaker’s gavel. She says subpoena
power may become a negotiating tool as Democratic committee chairmen dig into Trump’s
businesses and his administration.

Trump threatens a “warlike posture” if Democrats investigate him,
vowing to retaliate with investigations of Democrats.

“They can play that game, but we can play it better, because we
have a thing called the United States Senate,” he said.

Such talk by both sides makes gridlock almost inevitable -- and
nobody voted for that.

Thursday, November 1, 2018

Scores of angry emails and letters bombarded Irish
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar after the White House made a surprise announcement last
August President Donald Trump would visit Ireland.

Trump planned to stop at his golf resort in Doonbeg and
in Dublin on his way to Paris for the 100th anniversary of the
armistice that ended World War I on Nov. 11.

Protesters began to mobilize, saying they’d use the
20-foot tall “Trump Baby” balloon that floated over London in July when Trump
met with British Prime Minister Theresa May. More than 60 furious letter-writers
urged Varadkar to withdraw Trump’s invitation.

The letters, released under a Freedom of Information
Act request by the Irish Times and reported on Tuesday, provide a glimpse into
Trump’s unpopularity in a country that traditionally has welcomed U.S.
presidents.

“For all that is holy, please do not let Trump into
Ireland,” one correspondent emailed, the Times reported.

“Seriously, every time you come out in support of
Trump you experience a massive backlash,” another wrote Varadkar. “Why do you
keep putting your hand back on the hot stove?”

Noting Trump’s record on
immigration, trade, climate change and human rights, he or she signed the
letter “a thoroughly disgusted and disappointed citizen.”

Varadkar was sympathetic to the outcry but, like other
leading Irish politicians, he called for respect.

“I know a lot of people dislike him,” he said Sept. 2
on Irish radio. “A lot of people object to him, a lot of people disagree with a
lot of his policies -- just as I do, in fact -- but he is the president of
America.”

After 11 days of turmoil, the Irish government said Trump
wouldn’t visit after all. The White House cited “scheduling reasons.”

In the United States, about one in 10 people claimed Irish
ancestry in 2016, the Census Bureau reports, and many presidents, most recently
Barack Obama, play up their Irish roots.

Obama was an Illinois state senator in 2007 when Ancestry.com
discovered his great-great-great grandfather came from Ireland.

As president, Obama enjoyed a warm Irish welcome in
2011 when he and Michelle Obama visited the village of Moneygall and met several
of his distant relatives. An eighth cousin named
Henry instantly became known as Henry the Eighth.

In Dublin, Obama told a crowd described as “rapturous”
by a British newspaper, “My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas, and
I’ve come home to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way.”

As a tourist in Ireland last month, I met many people
eager to talk about Obama’s and even President John F. Kennedy’s visit. Galway
honored JFK’s 1963 visit with a bust in Eyre Square, also sometimes called JFK
Park, and a mosaic in Galway Cathedral.

No one brought up Trump – or another American president
who got a cold shoulder.

Protesters marked President Ronald Reagan’s visit in
1984. A leader of demonstrations against Reagan and U.S. policy in El Salvador
and Nicaragua was an Irish senator named Michael D. Higgins.

Higgins had an American connection, having earned a
master’s degree in sociology from Indiana University. Decades later, the
77-year-old poet, writer, former minister of culture and socialist is still
involved in politics.

Higgins was re-elected president of Ireland last week.
He is head of state, a largely ceremonial post, but it does give him a
platform. He has been an outspoken critic of Trump and this country’s
direction.

“Today we are witnessing a worrying surge of
unapologetic sexism and the undermining of women’s rights in one of the world’s
most advanced democracies,” Higgins said in April in New York.

Trump may own a fancy golf resort on the west coast of
Ireland, but he has much to learn about the country. Last summer, he raised
hackles when he said Ireland is in the United Kingdom.

Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., son of an immigrant from Donegal,
Ireland, fired back: “Ireland is not a part of the UK. It’s been an independent
country for about 100 years … Please stop embarrassing us on the international
stage.”

That’s a tall order for this president, but at least he
won’t embarrass us in Ireland this month.